


You Would Have Loved Her So

by ShinySurfinRaichu



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 00:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14153019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinySurfinRaichu/pseuds/ShinySurfinRaichu
Summary: Avad grieves over the loss of Ersa to his stepmother, Nasadi





	You Would Have Loved Her So

Nights like these were the hardest to stomach. When the world below was muted and distant, either the calming quiet of a city asleep, or the chanting happiness of people out living their lives. People who had hardships and burdens to bear just as he did. People who were allowed to fall down, and show their weakness every now and then.

Things were different atop the palace. Where guards would stare straight ahead and pretend not to see him, while their eyes betrayed how they really felt. It made Avad sick to think about, how they would see his weakness and wonder just how far they were willing to follow their King. He wasn't allowed to be a person grieving over loss, no, Avad was above that. He was the chosen of the Sun, and the Sun never cried. 

"But you are not the Sun." His stepmother points out quietly. Always a quiet pedastel of of support, sometimes he wondered how she survived as well. How was it that someone who loves her children so dearly, even if they weren't of her blood, someone who saw people around her and didn't view them any different despite their origins or status in the world, could have stomached life alongside the late-king Jiran. 

Then again, how had he stomached it for so long? Avad found himself thinking back to those days often, with guilt that would probably never let him go. His elder brother, Sun give him strength, had been the first to stand up to their father. The look in Kadaman's eyes that morning would never leave him. It was determination, burning so fiercely that Avad knew that would be the day that things changed in the Sundom.

What he hadn't known, was that Kadaman would not be the one to bring that change. He hadn't known that Jiran would look at his eldest son with disgust, and have him slaughtered as if he was nothing more than a nameless traitor. How could he have known, that that would be the straw that broke the boar's back and send him fleeing from everything he'd ever loved. 

Well, everything other than her, who had fled alongside him. The shadow to his light, the stone to his warmth. The woman with fire in her eyes and justice in her heart. She'd been the spark to his words, the force behind every plan he'd ever made. Things would have been so different without her, and things would be now that she was gone.

On nights like this, Avad often wondered how he would carry on. By day he could push his fears aside, Erend would make a fine Captain of the Guard. Because he would, Avad really did believe that, and he had come to think of the man like a brother. But it was different when the sky was dark and the world was quiet. Without the sun's clarity, life without Ersa felt bleak and dim.

"I am weak without her." He says.  
"You are strong for knowing her." She replies.

"Erend is weak without her." He says.  
"He is strong for loving her." She replies.

"The Sun is weak for stealing her." He cries.  
"No Sun could contain her." She cries too, "It was a monster who stole her."

"It was a man who stole her, for his body is just as cold." 

"Then she can rest knowing he will never touch you."

Nasadi is right, and patient with Avad no matter how many nights they sit out like this and say the same things over and over. She looks out at the city below them and points out things that Avad has done to help them all. She points out the things that Ersa helped with. She points out the things that Erend has. She points out that the Sun will rise again tomorrow.

And it does, just like it has every day before. With it, so does Avad, to be the King that his people need. 

On nights like those, when the first rays of dawn begin to streak the sky, Avad looks to his stepmother and he weeps. "You would have loved her so." He says, and she knows it to he true. But Nasadi loves her already, even if they will never meet, because her stepson loves her so and will always.

**Author's Note:**

> this is sorta self-indulgent bc i have a terrible biological mother, but i love my stepmom, so i really wanted to write a fic where Avad cared about his stepmother in the same way??


End file.
